The More Beautiful Question
by leiascully
Summary: Mal and Inara have a lot of unanswered questions.


"Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question." -E. E. Cummings

She was sitting in his room when he dropped down the last few rungs of the ladder. On the bed, of all places, but then he didn't suppose she'd had a whole lot of choice.

"'Nara," he said, nodding to her.

"I was thinking about it," she said, her voice like an old song. That was a funny thought. There hadn't been any music in his life for longer than he cared to remember.

"Thinkin' about what?" He turned away, splashed a little water on his face. His eyes were tired. His knees ached, too. He shrugged out of his suspenders, trying to prove she weren't any bother to him, just another night, another gorgeous woman on his bed. Hell, she knew him too well for that. He looked back and she was watching him, her eyes all thoughtful. "Speak your piece, Inara. You must have somethin' on your mind, to be in here."

"You did promise me a room," she said. Her feet were tucked up under her like she was planning to stay a good while. She was wearing what looked to be one of his shirts, and a skirt that he'd swear blind had been Kaylee's. It didn't fit right, too short, showing her calves and a couple inches of pale smooth thigh that he couldn't look at too long. Well. 'Couldn't' wasn't exactly the word for it. Most days he was used to her particular brand of disturbingly pretty, but finding her here and now reminded him all over again why men dogged her like idiots. Maybe he could stir a fight out of her, re-remind himself of the everyday workings of their relations.

"You commandeerin' my room? You wanna captain this boat now? Mighty ambitious of you, lady. Wouldn't have thought you'd'a wanted this bird anyway, given that you left her without a backwards look, while back." He dragged out the desk chair and twirled it on one leg, straddling it comfortable-like. Might as well. Inara was the kind of person, even if she started talking she'd take a solid hour to get to the couple of words she actually wanted to say.

"I left because I was afraid," she said, looking straight into his eyes.

He blinked. "Afraid of what?"

"It's forbidden for a Companion to fall in love." She cast her eyes down and then looked up again. He studied her. "Well, not exactly forbidden. But discouraged, certainly. It causes complications."

He stared across the room at a poster just over her head. "Well now. Someone told me once you're a lady who hates complications."

"I imagine she did say that," Inara said, with a wistful smile. "Nandi knew me better than anyone."

He grunted. Now and again he still dreamed of Nandi, flashes of red hair and pale skin. She'd been a hell of a woman. Too perceptive by half, just like his girl here, but a fine shot and bolder than most anyone he knew. He'd learned a few things from her. Learned even more from her death. It was a certain pity the best lessons in his life these days came from ghosts of friends he'd failed. There must've been a time when that wasn't true; right now, he'd be hard pressed to remember it.

"Mal," said Inara, gentle as a lullaby. "It's not like you not to ask the obvious question."

"Thinkin' on complications," he said. "Love. Sex. Death. It don't seem right that we lost Wash and the Shepherd. Lotta ghosts on this boat some days." He shifted in his chair. "So. Tell me about love and Companionin' being incompatible."

"You said you weren't asking me for anything," she said, "All my life I learned that sex is just sex, it doesn't have to be anything more, love is different."

"Sure," he said, puzzled. Her pretty hands were fluttering like birds around her pretty face, and her voice was a melody he had trouble following. The woman had wiles stacked on wiles. Strip her down to the skin and he suspected she'd still be clothed in all those layers of grace and polish. Meantime he felt naked just looking at her.

"Nobody believes in true love in the Core," she said. "Hardly anybody believes in love at all. They don't need it: almost everyone's safe and secure. They don't fall in love. They have sex for fun, or for social advancement. They get married for security or for alliances or to have someone to spend time around. Love is a chemical phenomenon. They don't take it to heart. Core society's all held together with credits." She tipped her head to the side and he thought about just how long she must have taken to find that perfect angle that made men want to sit and listen to her long past the point where words had actually been coming out of her mouth. He'd been one of them, straining for her voice in her dark shuttle after she'd left. "Things are different out here," she finished.

"That's certain," he said carefully. "Not enough credits to furnish a whole lotta security." Just like always, she was spinning him around. All this talk of love was crowding up in his tired head. He wanted to get up and go to her, to kiss her 'til her unpainted mouth was red again, and her cheeks flushed. She looked comfortable on his bed, her red-polished toes like little rubies in the folds of his white sheet. And the way she was looking at him, well, she didn't seem much to mind the way he was looking at her. But then there were the wiles. Women liked all that sappy conversation, didn't they? Maybe now that Kaylee was bunking with Simon, Inara didn't have a body to say these kinds of things to. He sure couldn't picture Zoe going doe-eyed over teacups and talk of old flames. Jayne neither. More like to smirk until his eyes fell out. River, Lord bless her, weren't exactly a real girl yet, for all she tried. So that left Inara in his bed, where no one but himself had been for longer than he cared to think on, discounting Saffron, who he definitely didn't care to think on. He shook his head a little to clear it.

"Do you know the first thing you learn as a Companion?" she asked.

"Uh...that thing you do where you look down through your eyelashes and up all at once?" He tried to demonstrate and wound up half-straining his eyes.

"No," she said. "Control. Control your emotions. Control your body. Control your responses. Being a Companion is all about control of yourself and of the situation."

"Don't seem exactly right to me," he said, "given I seen you slighted by your client more 'n once, and flung into a couple a walls."

"Love is not something you can control," she said, ignoring him, a secretive smile curling her lips. All of a sudden he found her knees fascinating, and the way her fingers curled around her ankle too. His ears were ringing like he'd been punched in the head a few times. He listened harder to the way the silence sat between them and the shape of the air after her words. It was kin to listening to the whirl of the engine and suddenly hearing the right note singing through.

"So, you're sayin'...what _are _you sayin'? You left because you were afraid...of love? Controllin' you? 'Nara, I ain't exactly made a secret of carin' for you, but I never looked to conquer you."

"I left," she said, "because I was afraid of loving you. Mal." She held out her hand and he kicked a leg over the chair and went to her. He sat on the edge of the bed and she moved her feet so her toes were nearly tucked under his thigh. She took his hand.

"Say that again?"

"I was afraid, Mal. Loving you isn't the easiest thing. You're stubborn, and you're so misguidedly noble and your choice of career...well. I'll just say you're not what I dreamed of when I was a little girl."

"But you love me."

"I surely do," she said, hoaxing a border accent, and now her smile was real, and bright enough to light his room. He caught himself leaning into the warmth of it.

"Ain't that somethin'," he drawled. "I seem to recall you runnin' away before I ever came near that word. What's changed?"

"Everything's changed." She turned his hand over in both of hers, rubbing her thumb across his palm. "You know that. Anyway, you asked the wrong questions."

"I asked you why I left," he muttered, his whole body set to tingling by the caress of her fingers. Lord, he was an easy mark, but there'd been a point miles back he'd stopped caring.

"It's not always the words of the question that are wrong," she said. "We were waiting to die. What mattered was that I was there."

"We're always waitin' to die," he said. "Inara."

"Why didn't you ask me to stay?" Her eyes were wide and very dark and a hell of a lot closer than he remembered them being before.

"Don't much matter if I came back, does it?"

"No," she said, and he closed the last inch between them, and kissed those perfect lips. She was warm and sweet and everything a woman ought to be. Her arms went around his neck and he wrapped her up, holding her close even though her knees jammed up into his hipbone. The room was hazy around him, but it didn't even seem to matter. This was _his _ girl. He let his eyes close and just kissed her, trusting.

"You know," she murmured into his shoulder. They were lying down, looking at each other, and he didn't even remember how it had happened. "They had stories about you and me at the training house."

"Now how'd all them fancy high-society girls know about a ragged ole smuggler like me?" He kissed her between words. "Not fit for their delicate ears, these kinds of capers. Can't imagine how a one of 'em would be interested in such antics."

"Ah," she teased. "But in the stories, you're a pirate. _Much _ more romantic."

"Can't hardly get more romantical than pirates," he agreed. "'Less of course you live with 'em. Maybe we should introduce 'em to Jayne." She laughed, the sound just as much a song as her voice was, and he grinned. "So tell me a story 'bout the handsome pirate captain and his rogue Companion of a lady."

"They didn't tell them to me," she said, "but I heard there was one where we made love in a burning temple. Flames all around us. Rivers of melted gold where the Buddha had been. Just our passion, turning the whole place to ash."

"Meanwhile the truth of it was we were takin' a wide berth around each other and only settin' fire to ourselves." He sighed, watching his breath make her curls dance. "I was a crotchety old bastard while you were gone. Tryin' to be glad that at least you were out of harm's way and failin' completely. Snappin' at Kaylee."

"Did you?" Her mouth sidled from grin to frown and back.

"My hand to God."

"You should have seen the way I spat at Sheydra when she tried to talk about you," she reminisced. "Lord, how boring the training house was after Serenity."

"Why'd you come back?" He nuzzled at her neck. There had to be some perfume on her, she smelled so good. But it was just her. No flowerdy scent, no musk, only her clean and smooth. He was glad of it. He'd seen her prettied up like a china doll and reeking with scent too many times, when she was going off to find some client or another. He didn't want the paint and fuss. Just looking at her now she was altogether she was the prettiest thing he'd seen. There was one tiny freckle on her collarbone he'd never seen before.

"You came for me," she said. "Captain Reynolds, performing another daring, misguided, half-assed, much appreciated rescue."

"But you stayed, after I dragged you back. After the battle. What held you?" He traced the line of her collarbone through the open neck of the shirt. Definitely his shirt, but it surely looked finer on her. She was like that, with her knack for making everyday things new kinds of pleasing. Even his misused knees ached less.

She ran a hand through his hair all tender-like. "I learned something in that battle with the Reavers. Stand against your fear and you come out different. You know what matters."

"You'd be safer in the House, teachin' schoolgirls how to woo."

"I don't know." Her smile pulled up at one corner. "Been knocking around the 'verse too long. I'm all ragged edges and ruffianism. Hardly a model for impressionable young Companions-in-training. I don't remember the last time I could find my makeup."

"Can't think of a thing better 'n you bein' here," he murmured. "Look at you, with all your wiles, turnin' me sappier 'n Kaylee after one of them lovey stories she moons over."

"You made me something better," she said. "How could I ever leave? Love matters out here on the borders. It's not the money that keeps the crew on this boat."

"Told River once, it's love that keeps a boat in the air." He stroked her cheek. "It is frightenin', though, how a thing becomes your whole world. This ship, this crew. You."

"Terrifying," she said. "But look. We made it."

"We ain't _made it_ yet," he mock-growled. "Don't tell me that ain't part of the whole love deal." He pulled her hips snug to his and kissed her 'til he saw stars. The way she curled into his body bespoke all sorts of future makings, sealed with kisses for promises.

"We made something, though," she whispered against his cheek. He could feel her smile against the corner of his mouth. Her hands danced up and down his back and Lord, just the feel of her was almost enough.

"It's a start," he said firmly. She leaned back a notch and her eyes slid over his face. He was minded of the skittish horses he'd handled on Shadow, and gentled his hand along the curve of her hip. Her flank tensed under his fingers. "Big dizzifyin' word, love. You made brave steps to get it out, and I aim to be worthy of it, if you stay. You ain't gonna skip out again?"

"I'm with you," she swore, her voice low and her eyes solemn.

"Well then. I suppose we got ourselves something to work with."

She was all cuddled against him, warm and womanly. "May I propose we make a start tomorrow by finding a slightly bigger bunk? Filch the extra pillows from the passenger dorm, maybe, until I can pick up my things from the training house?"

"Oh, darlin'," he grinned. "You're set to be a pirate queen. Whyn't you tell me before you had the mark of thievin' genius?"

"Girl's got to have her secrets," she said, preening and leaning over him as if her flyweight bones could pin him. She licked her lips with a tongue pinker than a bitten strawberry. "Or maybe you need to learn to ask better questions."

"Or maybe we should find better things to do than all this gorram talking," he said, and tumbled her over, kissing every last question out of mind.


End file.
